PARIS — France’s top administrative court on Monday overturned a government order banning French farmers from planting genetically modified crops from the US agriculture giant Monsanto.

France’s agriculture ministry imposed a ban in February 2008 amid concerns over public safety, but its decision had already been called into question by the European Court and has now been annulled by the State Council.

The State Council’s ruling stated that the government had failed to prove that Monsanto crops “present a particularly elevated level of risk to either human health or the environment”.

In September, the European Court of Justice ordered France to review its ban. Since then, the Council ruled, the French government had failed to present new evidence of the supposed dangers posed by the plants.

France’s ban on GM crops was illegal

FRANCE’S highest court has confirmed the European Court of Justice’s judgment that the 2008 French ban on the cultivation of genetically modified crops (GM) was illegal.

Both courts overturned the national ban declaring the French Government presented no scientific evidence of any risk to health or the environment from these crops.

EuropaBio’s Director of Green Biotechnology Europe, Carel du Marchie Sarvaas, said: “These judgments from the highest European court and the highest French court send one message loud and clear: bans of GM crops cannot be based on political dogma.